AIBU to think a big house is a lot of work and expensive to run.

[Thingsthatgo]

We have outgrown our little terrace house, and have found somewhere to buy which I love. I am very excited about having more space. Other than when I was a child and living with my parents I have always lived in places that I have considered too small; tiny basement flats and little terrace houses.
Is a big house going to be a huge amount of work/upkeep? My dh is great around the house (better than me), so it will be shared responsibility, but I want to be prepared for the money and expense involved. It is 100 years old, and will be expensive to heat I imagine, plus more council tax. What other things might I need to consider?

We've been in our 3000sq ft house, built in the early 80s, for almost 25 years. In that time, we've installed central heating (£6k), insulated the roof space, had a new flat roof (£2k), replaced the exterior rendering on three sides (£15k), updated three bathrooms (£18k) and the kitchen (£22k). We've also gradually redecorated all through the house, with carpets and curtains, reglazed and improved the original wooden windows with the DG panels failed (£9k) and had new doors, windows and bifold door to replace some really nasty windows we were sold 20 years this year (£8k). It's just maintenance, mainly necessary because we are exposed to wind and weather, but we have come to reckon that we need to find £5 -10k each year to keep the house sound. Which is about 1% of the house's value. Some years are more painful than others. But we shall sell it to downsize and it will mean the surveyor won't find many faults. But this has kept it modern and contemporary, so it feels like a lovely family home.

However, we despair of finding what we want for our retirement; I think we'll have to build it from scratch. We want fewer rooms, but not small ones!

I haven't included wood-burners etc, because we made the choice to fix/improve those.

@ElanaD

A good guideline is to budget 10% of house value per year for upkeep/repairs.

So my house in SW London worth £1m will cost £100k a year in upkeep?

SchnitzelVon makes a very good point. We moved from a four floor Edwardian monstrosity (although very happy in it for 20 years) to a House with similar sq footage but over two floors and it is just so much easier. All those twisting staircases and endless stairs and ridgy skirting boards. And no need to have a super powered water tank to get the water pressure to the top floor.

Bigger house and bugger garden means more time to clean, garden and maintain. We are in this category and I would seriously like to downsize

@Gobbycop - The gate is hardwood, 6 metre gap and 1.5 metre high. Plus hardware, plus posts and fitting. Will look lovely - needs to be solid for security reasons as on a footpath. 2k was one of the cheaper quotes!

Exterior painting is a major expense because it needs to be done regularly and will probably need scaffolding, which costs a lot.

I have fantasies about living in a one bedroom flat with white furniture. I'd hate it really

10% is certainly too much for london properties, as theyre so expensive to start with.

10% of house value yearly for maintenance? Who has that kind of money. Not ever spent this much in my experience.

We spent less than 20% on a full renovation that involved removing walls!

A good guideline is to budget 10% of house value per year for upkeep/repairs this is ridiculous. No way do I spend or need to spend £17k a year maintaining my three story 4 bedroomed home.

Having said that cleaning my house is like painting the forth bridge: as soon as I have got around all of it I need to start again

I live in a 5 bed house and I find it hard work because I absolutely hate cleaning!! Someone who enjoys cleaning would have no problems really. Having 3 bathrooms to clean instead of one is annoying.
The bills are more, the council tax is more. But the space and garden are worth it.
(ours isn't a flashy detached or anything, it's a bog standard 3 bed semi that's been extended to double the size)

We lived in a tiny house and I had to tidy every bloody day or the DC's toys took over every square inch.

We lived to a house more than twice the size, which meant less time tidying and more time cleaning. Love the house though, plus the DC were no longer on top of each other => less fighting.

We've spent a bloody fortune doing it up and maintaining it, but it was in a pretty shit state at the start.

A good guideline is to budget 10% of house value per year for upkeep/repairs

That's crazy - for my house it would be £45k a year! That's more than our combined earnings.

We could get a 2-storey extension built for £80k, and nearly double the size of it.

My mum has a wide big house, I think 3000 sq ft & that's without a loft conversion. It's too big for her to manage really & she needs to downsize.

& she doesn't spend anything close to 190k maintaining it!

i think, reading over all of the responses, and yes I have RTFT, that it's important to put aside 5% of the value of your house each year for maintenance. You won't need to spend it every year, but every few years there's likely to be a big bill that may be three years' of savings.

@XingMing

i think, reading over all of the responses, and yes I have RTFT, that it's important to put aside 5% of the value of your house each year for maintenance. You won't need to spend it every year, but every few years there's likely to be a big bill that may be three years' of savings.

Still not convinced. 5% of the value of our house is 20k. In three years that’s £60k. I can’t imagine anything in our 4 bed detached house that will cost £60k to repair. We’ve done a fair bit of work since we moved in 3 years ago and have spent £6k in 3 years.

I didn't say that you need to spend it often, but every 10 or 15 years, there will be a big essential task that makes your eyes water. So save 3%, and you have a cushion for when it happens. You may not need to spend it, but if something big fails, and has to be fixed soonest, then you have a decent chunk of money to put things right. We have tended to improve what we have, but our house is less than 50 years old. It was habitable when we bought it, and would have remained habitable if we had spent nothing on it, but it's more saleable now because it's quite up to date. It would be worth approximately £350k if we had done nothing, but with them, closer to £550K now. And we have enjoyed the improvements, which we did for ourselves. .

Its never ending. Our property is about 4500 square feet so large but not massive. The garden is five acres and we have further woodland attached. All we do is maintain the bloody house and gardens.

Just an example, two years ago we needed specimen trees and hedges managed. It was over £2k for three days work for a tree surgeon to trim and shape them properly, and clear the brash. I could have asked someone else to cut them, and it would have been 50% less expensive, but it would have been done badly.

Even with 3%, in 10 years that’s 120k. We’re currently pricing up a huge 2 story extension and that won’t be more than 50k.
1% is ample.

It isn't linear though is it. Even if you say 5%, a £2m property is not going to need £100k to maintain it each year. A 50k property may well need £2.5k though.

Working it out as a % wouldn’t make sense anyway. Our exact house in London would be approx £1 million. So if I saved 5% of our house value, that would be £20k a year. In London that would be £50k a year. I know tradesmen cost more in London, but not that much more.